Mind Games Day 3: Gunina, Aronian lead blitz

12/14/2013 – Day one of the brutal blitz tournament has started. The event has a total of 30 rounds and today the first set of ten was played. In the Men's section Armenian Levon Aronian has destroyed the competition and emerged the strong leader with 8.5/10. In the Women's Gunina started with two losses, rebounded with an amazing eight wins and leads over Muzychuk and Yifan. Day 3 impressions.

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SportAccord Mind Games will be held in Beijing, China between the 12th of December and 20th December 2012. The World Mind Games was held for the first time in 2008 and consisted of 5 disciplines: chess, bridge, draughts (checkers), go, and xiangqi (Chinese chess). SportAccord, the organizer of the Mind Games, is the umbrella organization for both Olympic and non-Olympic sports as well as for major organizers of conferences and sporting events.

Day 3: Blitz - Men

Geoffrey Borg, FIDE CEO, and rapid winner Wang Yue

Le Quang Liem is the reigning World Blitz Champion. His showing so far has been solid as he is in 5th place

Aronian, who had a very weak showing in the rapids, came back and reminded the World of his strength in blitz chess. He started pretty well with a win against Ponomariov, a draw against Wang Yue and then three in a row victories against Wang Hao, Ivanchuk and Leko. He was stopped after Karjakin took advantage of a strange to win against Aronian with black. However the Armenian's day one finish was truly amazing with four triumphs in a row: Kamsky, Radjabov, Le Quang Liem and Dominguez all fell in a row to him.

Professional DGT boards come with two queens. Rumor has it that this is in case that a pawn is promoted before the queens are traded off. The truth is, as Giri here proves, that the spare queen is used to have a piece to fiddle with before anything comes off the board.

Nepomniachtchi, who is currently in second, started with a win against Ivanchuk, lost to Karjakin and Radjabov and then won an amazing six in a row. He finished the day with a draw against Kamsky which is good enough for 7.5/10

Blitz means time scrambles and extra pressure

Grischuk's +2 (6.0/10) is enough to put him in fourth thanks to tiebreaks

The field is just incredilby competitive. Prove of this is that Leko, the rapid winner, is currently tied for last with Dominguez who was World Blitz Champion only a few years ago.

Tomorrow there will be ten more rounds, and the blitz finishes on Monday with the last set of ten.

Ten more rounds means Dominguez has ten more chances to recover tomorrow

Name

Rtg

FED

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

Pts

1

Aronian Levon

2817

ARM

* *

1

1

0

1

½

1

1

1

1

1

8½

2

Nepomniachtchi, I

2830

RUS

* *

1

0

0

½

1

1

1

1

1

1

7½

3

Mamedyarov, S

2721

AZE

* *

0

½

0

1

1

0

1

1

1

1

6½

4

Grischuk Alexander

2798

RUS

* *

1

0

½

1

0

0

1

½

1

1

6

5

Le Quang Liem

2841

VIE

0

0

* *

1

½

1

1

1

½

½

½

6

6

Vachier-Lagrave, M

2825

FRA

0

1

1

0

* *

0

1

1

1

½

½

6

7

Radjabov Teimour

2755

AZE

0

1

½

½

½

* *

1

½

½

1

½

6

8

Karjakin Sergey

2837

RUS

1

1

1

0

1

0

* *

0

1

0

½

5½

9

Kamsky Gata

2671

USA

0

½

1

0

0

* *

1

0

½

1

1

5

10

Wang Yue

2723

CHN

½

0

0

½

1

* *

½

1

½

½

½

5

11

Giri Anish

2747

NED

0

0

1

0

½

0

0

½

* *

1

½

3½

12

Ivanchuk Vassily

2750

UKR

0

0

1

0

0

1

0

0

* *

1

½

3½

13

Ponomariov Ruslan

2774

UKR

0

0

0

0

0

1

½

0

* *

1

½

3

14

Wang Hao

2698

CHN

0

0

0

½

½

½

½

½

0

* *

½

3

15

Dominguez Perez, L

2769

CUB

0

0

0

0

½

½

½

0

½

½

* *

2½

16

Leko Peter

2722

HUN

0

0

0

0

½

½

0

½

½

½

* *

2½

Note: Blitz ratings used

Men Blitz games 1-10

Day 3: Blitz - Women

Gunina is having a good time in China

Stefanova and Lagno kicked off the tournament with a draw against each other

Things in the Women's section looked very similar to the way the rapid progressed, with some big exceptions. First of all Gunina is leading the blitz after winning the rapid, but she is doing in a very unusual way. She started with losses against Cmilyte and Muzychuk and then proceeded to destroy the rest of her opponents with eight wins in a row! Speaking of Muzychuk she turned around her dissmal performance in the rapid and is now second in the blitz only half a point away from Gunina.

Muzychuk has rebounded nicely!

Hou Yifan will need to win more games to do better than bronze this time

In third is the World Champion Hou Yifan with 6.5/10, half a point ahead of another Chinese player, Zhao Xue, who is in fourth. Ju Wenjun, who got bronze in the rapids, finished the day with four losses in a row and only has 2.5/10.

Ju Wenjun only has 2.5/10 but she has two thirds of the tournament left

Ushenina is back in China after losing the World Championship to Hou Yifan earlier this year. In the blitz she has scored 50%

Alejandro RamirezGrandmaster Alejandro Ramirez has been playing tournament chess since 1998. His accomplishments include qualifying for the 2004 and 2013 World Cups as well as playing for Costa Rica in the 2002, 2004 and 2008 Olympiads. He currently has a rating of 2583 and is author of a number of popular and critically acclaimed ChessBase-DVDs.

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Video

Former World Champion Mikhail Botvinnik liked to play the French and once described it as a 'difficult and dangerous opening'. But in this 60 minutes video IM Andrew Martin suggests an aggressive and little-used idea of the renowned attacking player GM Viktor Kupreichik to counter the French: 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 c5 4.c3 Nc6 5.Be3!?. Andrew Martin uses the games of Kupreichik to show why this line could catch many French aficionados unprepared and is very dangerous for Black. Attacking players will love this line and the unusual complications that it promotes.